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3rd Maryland Potomac Home Guard Letter Collection

A rare war-date Union officer's letter collection consisting of seven, mostly 8vo., letters, totaling approximately 20 pages, written by Lt. Frederick Pringey, Co. E, 3rd Maryland Potomac Home Guards, dated between August and December 1862, reading, in part: "…[Camp Tyler, Jefferson Co. Va., Aug. 23, 1862]…we are stationed at Kearnyviile on the Balt. & Ohio RR eight miles below Martinsburg. This is a small village surrounded by a delightful country…the citizens are very accommodating but mostly ceesh…I had a fine feast of ceesh chicken for dinner…we play that game pretty often called the soldier's game…Phillip Hamer is raising a company of volunteers…please let me know who…have joined & who their officers are…I think old Jeff's cracker barrel is about empty…[Annapolis, Md., Oct. 21]…we are not exchanged yet…our colonel has got back from Washington…we will be sent to Cumberland in the course of two or three weeks…Lucian is still…in the quartermasters department…he is in camp at this time issuing rations…the boys are getting very mischevious. They have taken to pulling down their tents and putting them up again…our second lieutenant [and me] has got a tent to ourselves large enough for 20 men and are accompanied by a very large stove…[Camp Parole, Annapolis, Oct. 27]…a storm…came upon us last night and blew down a great many of our tents…our bed clothes are wet through…the Baltimore American…states that the Army of the Potomac made a general move…the Rebs will be driven back to Richmond…I have been forming an idea of what you Preston Malicia thinks of coming out with your shotgun, squirrel rifles and cornstalks. The idea that I have formed is as follows. When the Brewster Company was being got up…it was sport for us to look on and see how green the boys was about drilling…now this has come home to the bystanders and we go about it about as ignorant as they. But never flinch my harty flat footed Malicia shoulder your cornstalk and never fear the rebs…[Annapolis, Nov. 1]…you will soon see some of our boys at hme…they say that they will…make a general skedaddle of it and as they are paroled prisoners…their proper place is at home. I would not blame them for it…[Annapolis, Nov. 17]…I have had a spell of typhoid fever…I would have come home when I was taken but orders was for all officers leaving camp to be casheried…Fayette County put out nine hundred drafted men [and was] given a number of names I am intimately acquainted with and ones that told me when I was at home recruiting that they would volunteer…as soon as their country needed them…I suppose that they couldn't be convenienced that their country needed them till it was too late to volunteer. It does me good to hear of such cases especially when they are tainted with cecshendom…[Annapolis, Dec7, 1862]…George Marist has been with us for 3 or 4 days. He going to see his son tomorrow below Washington. His other son belonging to our company is going with him home…we have moved our camp to the main camp but we are not treated as kindly here as we was before we moved over…". Usual wear and folds, else very good.

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